πεισάτω ἢ νήφειν μ', ἢ μαθέτω μεθύειν.
Amid this multitude of poems it is difficult to make a fair or representative selection. There are, however, four which I cannot well omit. The first is written by Poseidippus on a lost statue of Lysippus (ii. 584):
Λύσιππος. σὺ δὲ τίς; Καιρὸς ὁ πανδαμάτωρ·
τίπτε δ' ἐπ' ἄκρα βέβηκας; ἀεὶ τροχάω. τὶ δὲ ταρσοὺς
ποσσὶν ἔχεις διφυεῖς; ἵπταμ' ὑπηνέμιος·
χειρὶ δὲ δεξιτερῇ τὶ φέρεις ξυρόν; ἀνδράσι δεῖγμα
ὡς ἀκμῆς πάσης ὀξύτερος τελέθω.
ἡ δὲ κόμη τὶ κατ' ὄψιν; ὑπαντιάσαντι λαβέσθαι.
νὴ Δία τἀξόπιθεν δ' εἰς τὶ φαλακρὰ πέλει;
τὸν γὰρ ἅπαξ πτηνοῖσι παραθρέξαντά με ποσσὶν
οὔτις ἔθ' ἱμείρων δράξεται ἐξόπιθεν.
τοὔνεχ' ὁ τεχνίτης σε διέπλασεν; εἵνεκεν ὑμῶν,
ξεῖνε· καὶ ἐν προθύροις θῆκε διδασκαλίην.[249]
The second describes the statue of Nemesis erected near Marathon by Pheidias—that memorable work by which the greatest of sculptors recorded the most important crisis in the world's history (ii. 573):
λαοτύπος τμήξας πετροτόμοις ἀκίσι
Μῆδος ἐποντοπόρευσεν, ὅπως ἀνδρείκελα τεύξῃ,
τῆς κατ' Ἀθηναίων σύμβολα καμμονίης·
ὡς δὲ δαϊζομένοις Μαραθὼν ἀντέκτυπε Πέρσαις
καὶ νέες ὑγροπόρουν χεύμασιν αἱμαλέοις,
ἔξεσαν Ἀδρήστειαν ἀριστώδινες Ἀθῆναι,
δαίμον' ὑπερφιάλοις ἀντίπαλον μερόπων·
ἀντιταλαντεύω τὰς ἔλπιδας· εἰμὶ δὲ καὶ νῦν
Νίκη Ἐρεχθείδαις, Ἀσσυρίοις Νέμεσις.[250]
The third celebrates the Aphrodite of Praxiteles in Cnidos, whose garden has been so elegantly described by Lucian (ii. 560):
βουλομένη κατιδεῖν εἰκόνα τὴν ἰδίην·
πάντη δ' ἀθρήσασα περισκέπτῳ ἐνὶ χώρῳ,
φθέγξατο· ποῦ γυμνὴν εἶδέ με Πραξιτέλης;[251]
The fourth is composed with much artifice of style upon a statue of Love bound by his arms to a pillar (ii. 567):
κλαῖε μάλα, στάζων ψυχοτακῆ δάκρυα,
σωφροσύνας ὑβριστά, φρενοκλόπε, λῃστὰ λογισμοῦ,
πτανὸν πῦρ, ψυχᾶς τραῦμ' ἀόρατον, Ἔρως·
θνατοῖς μὲν λύσις ἐστὶ γόων ὁ σός, ἄκριτε, δεσμός·
ᾧ σφιγχθεὶς κωφοῖς πέμπε λιτὰς ἀνέμοις·
ὃν δὲ βροτοῖς ἀφύλακτος ἐνέφλεγες ἐν φρεσὶ πυρσὸν
ἄθρει νῦν ὑπὸ σῶν σβεννύμενον δακρύων.[252]
In bringing this review of the Anthology to a close, I feel that I have been guilty of two errors. I have wearied the reader with quotations; yet I have omitted countless epigrams of the purest beauty. The very riches of this flower-garden of little poems are an obstacle to its due appreciation. Each epigram in itself is perfect, and ought to be carefully and lovingly studied. But it is difficult for the critic to deal in a single essay with upwards of four thousand of these precious gems. There are many points of view which with adequate space and opportunity might have been taken for the better illustration of the epigrams. Their connection with the later literature of Greece, especially with the rhetoricians, Philostratus, Alciphron, and Libanius, many of whose best compositions are epigrams in prose—as Jonson knew when he turned them into lyrics; their still more intimate æsthetic harmony with the engraved stones and minor bass-reliefs, which bear exactly the same relation to Greek sculpture as the epigrams to the more august forms of Greek poetry; the lives of their authors; the historical events to which they not unfrequently allude—all these are topics for elaborate dissertation.
Perhaps, however, the true secret of their charm is this: that in their couplets, after listening to the choric raptures of triumphant public art, we turn aside to hear the private utterances, the harmoniously modulated whispers of a multitude of Greek poets telling us their inmost thoughts and feelings. The unique melodies of Meleager, the chaste and exquisite delicacy of Callimachus, the clear dry style of Straton, Plato's unearthly subtlety of phrase, Antipater's perfect polish, the good sense of Palladas, the fretful sweetness of Agathias, the purity of Simonides, the gravity of Poseidippus, the pointed grace of Philip, the few but mellow tones of Sappho and Erinna, the tenderness of Simmias, the biting wit of Lucillius, the sunny radiance of Theocritus—all these good things are ours in the Anthology. But beyond these perfumes of the poets known to fame is yet another. Over very many of the sweetest and the strongest of the epigrams is written the pathetic word ἀδέσποτον—without a master. Hail to you, dead poets, unnamed, but dear to the Muses! Surely with Pindar and with Anacreon and with Sappho and with Sophocles the bed of flowers is spread for you in those "black-petalled hollows of Pieria" where Ion bade farewell to Euripides.
FOOTNOTES:
[163] He mutilated and, so to speak, castrated this book quite as much as he arranged its contents, by withdrawing the more lascivious epigrams according to his own boast.
[164] Paris, 1864-1872. The translations quoted by me are taken principally from the collections of Wellesley (Anthologia Polyglotta) and Burgess (Bohn's Series), and from the Miscellanies of the late J. A. Symonds, M.D. The versions contributed by myself have no signature.
[165] I have spoken of these compositions of Simonides as though they all belonged to the dedicatory epigrams. A large number of them are, however, incorporated among the epitaphs proper.
That, as their laws commanded, here we fell.
John Sterling.
There is no very good translation of this couplet. The difficulty lies in the word ῥήμασι. Is this equivalent to ῥήτραις, as Cicero, who renders it by legibus, seems to think? Or is it the same as orders?
Sustained by courage in their hour of need,
Drove forth the Persians, they to Zeus that frees
This altar built, the free fair pride of Greece.
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.
I wept, as I remembered how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.
A handful of gray ashes, long, long ago at rest,
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake,
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.
Asleep, not dead; a good man never dies.
J. A. Symonds, M.D.
Ere thy fair light had fled;
Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus giving
New splendor to the dead.
Shelley.
Lie 'neath Ecbatana's champaign, where we fell.
Farewell Eretria, thou famed land of yore,
And neighbor Athens, and loved sea, farewell.
In whose sad keeping my poor dust is laid,
To him, who near my tomb his footsteps turns,
Stranger or Greek, bid hail; and say a maid
Rests in her bloom below; her sire the name
Of Baucis gave; her birth and lineage high;
And say her bosom friend Erinna came
And on this tomb engraved her elegy.
Elton.
Persephone locked in her darksome bed:
For her the maids who were her fellows shore
Their curls and to her tomb this tribute bore.
Sleep, poor youth, sleep in peace,
Relieved from love and mortal care;
For so few years and speedy in their flight?
Was it to vex by my untimely death
With tears and wailings her who gave me breath?
Who bore me, and who reared me, and who wrought
More for my youth with many a careful thought
Than my dead sire: he left me in his hall
An orphan babe: 'twas she alone did all.
My joy it was beneath grave men of laws,
Just pleas to urge and win approved applause;
But from my cheek she never plucked the flower
Of charming youth, nor dressed my bridal bower,
Nor sang my marriage hymn, nor saw, ah me!
My offspring shoot upon our ancient tree,
That now is withered. Even in the tomb
I wail Politta's woe, the gloom on gloom
That swells her grief for Phronton; since a boy
In vain she bore, his country's empty joy.
To a far country better than our own;
Thy home is now an island of the blest;
There 'mid Elysian meadows take thy rest:
Or lightly trip along the flowery glade,
Rich with the asphodels that never fade!
Nor pain, nor cold, nor toil shall vex thee more,
Nor thirst, nor hunger on that happy shore;
Nor longings vain (now that blest life is won)
For such poor days as mortals here drag on;
To thee for aye a blameless life is given
In the pure light of ever-present Heaven.
J. A. Symonds, M.D.
Down from the mountain through the snow-wreaths deep;
But ah! Therimachus sleeps the long sleep
'Neath yonder oak, lulled by the levin-flame.
Hath for her flesh found freedom in the grave.
Thy spirit high with long luxurious days.
When thou art dead, thou hast no pleasure then.
I too am earth, who was a king of men
O'er Nineveh. My banquets and my lust
And love-delights are mine e'en in the dust;
But all those great and glorious things are flown.
True doctrine for man's life is this alone.
Without or sword or shield, a naked man,
Your mother then, Demetrius, through your side
Plunged her blood-drinking spear, nor wept, but cried:
Die; let not Sparta bear the blame; but she
Sinned not, if cowards drew their life from me!
The tomb and name of Lais I espied:
I wept and said: "Hail, queen, the fame of thee,
Though ne'er I saw thee, draws these tears from me;
How many hearts for thee were broken, how
By Lethe lustreless thou liest now!"
What, whether base or proud my pedigree?
Perhaps I far surpassed all other men;
Perhaps I fell below them all; what then?
Suffice it, stranger! that thou seest a tomb;
Thou know'st its use; it hides—no matter whom.
W. Cowper.
Thy strains shall lure; no more the savage herds,
Nor hail, nor driving clouds, nor tempest's roar,
Nor chafing billows list thy lulling words;
For thou art dead: and all the Muses mourn,
But most Calliope, thy mother dear.
Shall we then, reft of sons, lament forlorn,
When e'en the gods must for their offspring fear?
J. A. Symonds, M.D.
Around the tomb where Sophocles is laid;
Sweet ivy, wind thy boughs, and intertwine
With blushing roses and the clustering vine:
Thus will thy lasting leaves, with beauties hung,
Prove grateful emblems of the lays he sung;
Whose soul, exalted like a god of wit,
Among the muses and the graces writ.—Anon.
In black-leaved vales Pierian is spread:
Dead though thou art, yet know thy fame shall be,
Like Homer's, green through all eternity.
Have sense and knowledge, as some men assert,
I'd hang myself to see Euripides.
Where soft thy hallowed brow reposes,
Long may the deathless ivy twine,
And summer pour his waste of roses!
And many a rill refresh the flowers;
But wine shall gush in every rill,
And every fount yield milky showers.
To tune his lyre and soul to pleasure,
Who gave to love his warmest thought,
Who gave to love his fondest measure;
Thou mayest, from odors round thee streaming,
A pulse of past enjoyment steal,
And live again in blissful dreaming.
T. Moore.
Here dwells the dread Hipponax, dealing bale.
E'en 'mid his ashes, fretful, poisonous,
He shoots iambics at slain Bupalus.
Wake not the sleeping wasp: for though he's dead,
Still straight and sure his crooked lines are sped.
Who first with viper's gall the muse did stain,
And bathed mild Helicon with butchery.
Lycambes weeping for her daughters three
Learned this. Pass then in silence: be not fain
To stir the wasps that round his grave remain.
J. A. Symonds, M.D.
For she was but a girl of nineteen years:—
Yet stronger far than what most men can write:
Had Death delayed, whose fame had equalled hers?
Æolian earth? that mortal Muse confessed
Inferior only to the choir above,
That foster-child of Venus and of Love;
Warm from whose lips divine Persuasion came,
Greece to delight, and raise the Lesbian name?
O ye, who ever twine the threefold thread,
Ye Fates, why number with the silent dead
That mighty songstress, whose unrivalled powers
Weave for the Muse a crown of deathless flowers?
Francis Hodgson.
Forged many a hallowed hymn and holy strain,
Pindar, here sleeps beneath the sacred earth:
Hearing his songs a man might swear the brood
Of Muses made them in their hour of mirth,
What time round Cadmus' marriage-bed they stood.
The gods forever 'mid their ranks enroll.
And—
To what sublime and starry-paven home
Floatest thou?
Ascending heaven: Athens does inherit
His corpse below.
Shelley.
Whether the spirit's race is run
From Athens or from Meroë:
Weep not, far off from home to die;
The wind doth blow in every sky,
That wafts us to that doleful sea.
J. A. Symonds, M.D.
As if about to live, use sparingly.
That man is wise, who, bearing both in mind,
A mean, befitting waste and thrift, can find.
Burgess.
W. Shepherd.
Dismissing cares, or bear your pains alway.
'Twixt wealth and poverty she bandies all:
These, cast to earth, up to the skies rebound;
These, tossed to heaven, come trembling to the ground.
Weep then the swiftness of the flying years:
We sit upon the ground and sleep away,
Toiling or feasting; but time runs for aye,
Runs a fell race against poor wretched man,
Bringing for each the day that ends his span.
In tears too must I die;
And mine has been, through life's long years,
A tearful destiny.
To death all comfortless:
Then swept away beneath the earth
In utter nothingness.
Edward Stokes.
But being born, in Hades I must pine:
O birth-act that brought death! O bitter fate
That drives me to the grave disconsolate!
To naught I turn, who nothing was ere birth;
For men are naught and less than nothing worth.
Then let the goblet gleam for me, my friend;
Pour forth care-soothing wine, ere pleasures end.
[206] See Fitzgerald's faultless translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, published by Quaritch.
Comes suddenly the darksome king, whose breath
Or wastes or burns or blows our life away,
But drives us all down to one pit of death.
Awake, nor dote on death that waits for all.
Spare not, my Diodorus, but drink free
Till Bacchus loose each weak and faltering knee.
Long will the years be when we can't carouse—
Long, long: up then ere age hath touched our brows.
No mortal knoweth: wherefore toil or run?
Spend while thou mayst, eat, fix on present things
Thy hopes and wishes: life and death are one.
One moment: grasp life's goods; to thee they fall:
Dead, thou hast nothing, and another all.
Goldwin Smith.
[210] The country that gave birth to me is Gadara, an Attic city on Assyrian shores.
[211] Who grew to man's estate in Tyre and Gadara, and found a fair old age in Cos. If then thou art a Syrian, Salaam! if a Phœnician, Naidios! if a Hellene, Hail!
Goldwin Smith.
Not for her wedding, but for Acheron;
'Twas but last eve the merry pipes were swelling,
And dancing footsteps thrilled the festive dwelling;
Morn changed those notes for wailings loud and long,
And dirges drowned the hymeneal song;
Alas! the very torches meant to wave
Around her bridal couch, now light her to the grave!
J. A. Symonds, M.D.
O men that know not love, your favoring gale
Steals half my soul, Andragathos, from me!
Thrice lucky ships, and billows of the sea
Thrice blessed, and happiest breeze that bears the boy!
Oh would I were a dolphin, that my joy,
Here on my shoulders ferried, might behold
Rhodes, the fair island thronged with boys of gold!
[215] "O soul too loving, cease at length from even in dreams thus idly basking in the warmth of Beauty's empty shapes."
[216] "Pour forth; and again cry, again, and yet again, 'to Heliodora!'"
[217] "I pray thee, Earth, all-nourishing, in thy deep breast, O mother, to enfold her tenderly, for whom my tears must flow for aye."
[218] "This one boon I ask of thee, great mother of all gods, beloved Night! Nay, I beseech thee, thou fellow wanderer with Revelry, O holy Night!"
[219] "The boy is honey-teared, tireless of speech, swift, without sense of fear, with laughter on his roguish lips, winged, bearing arrows in a quiver on his shoulders."
[220] "Why vainly in thy bonds thus pant and fret? Love himself bound thy wings and set thee on a fire, and rubbed thee, when thy breath grew faint with myrrh, and when thou thirstedst gave thee burning tears to drink."
[221] "A reveller I go freighted with fire not wine beneath the region of my heart."
[222] "How could it be that poet also should not sing fair songs in spring?"
[223] Those who on the shores of the Mediterranean have traced out beds of red tulips or anemones or narcissus from terrace to terrace, over rocks and under olive-branches, know how delicately true to nature is the thought contained in the one epithet οὐρεσίφοιτα—roaming like nymphs along the hills, now single and now gathered into companies, as though their own sweet will had led them wandering.
Spread broad thy pinions aquiline:
Carry amid thy plumage him
Who fills Jove's beaker to the brim:
Take care that neither crookèd claw
Make the boy's thigh or bosom raw;
For Jove will wish thee sorry speed
If thou molest his Ganymede.
Starry with infinite eyes, gazing forever at thee!
Frederick Farrar.
Shelley.
Through the shy lattice shoot thy silver sheen;
Illume Callistion: for a goddess may
Gaze on a pair of lovers while they play.
Thou enviest her and me, I know, fair moon,
For thou didst once burn for Endymion.
Singing wild songs of Bacchic revelry:
Forth flowed the must in rills; our cups of wood
Like cockboats swam upon the honeyed flood:
With these we drew, and as we filled them, quaffed,
With no warm Naiad to allay the draught:
But fair Rhodanthe bent above the press,
And the fount sparkled with her loveliness:
We in our souls were shaken; yea, each man
Quaked beneath Bacchus and the Paphian.
Ah me! the one flowed at our feet in streams—
The other fooled us with mere empty dreams!
[230] Comus, 463, etc.
[232] A certain Cyril gives this as his definition of a good epigram (ii. 75; compare No. 342 on p. 69):
τοὺς τρεῖς, ῥαψῳδεῖς κοὐκ ἐπίγραμμα λέγεις.
Write more; you aim at epic poetry.
Here the essence of this kind of poetry is said to be brevity. But nothing is said about a sting. And on the point of brevity, the Cyril to whom this couplet is attributed is far too stringent when judged by the best Greek standards. The modern notion of the epigram is derived from a study of Martial, whose best verses are satirical and therefore of necessity stinging.
Adorns the earth: to heaven
The pride of stars is given:
Athens illustrates Greece:
She on her brows doth set
Of men this coronet.
Destructive goat, enough of fruit
I bear, betwixt my horns to shed,
When to the altar thou art led.
Merivale.
Are sadly to seek,
Not five in five-score,
But ninety-five more;
All—save only Hermann;
And Hermann's a German.
Porson.
Bear'st thou to thy callow brood
Yonder locust from the mead,
Destined their delicious food?
Ye alike unfold the wing,
Migrate hither, sojourn here,
Both attendant on the spring.
Let it not with truth be said,
That a songster gasps and dies,
That a songster may be fed.
W. Cowper.
When I yon planet's course survey,
This earth I then despise;
Near Jove's eternal throne I stand,
And quaff from an immortal hand
The nectar of the skies.
Philip Smyth.
[238] Bacon's version, "The world's a bubble, and the life of man—," is both well known and too long to quote. The following is from the pen of Sir John Beaumont:
In courts hard questions large contention make:
Care dwells in houses, labor in the field,
Tumultuous seas affrighting dangers yield.
In foreign lands thou never canst be blessed;
If rich, thou art in fear; if poor, distressed.
In wedlock frequent discontentments swell;
Unmarried persons as in deserts dwell.
How many troubles are with children born;
Yet he that wants them counts himself forlorn.
Young men are wanton, and of wisdom void;
Gray hairs are cold, unfit to be employed.
Who would not one of these two offers choose,
Not to be born, or breath with speed to lose?
Immortal fame from public action grows:
Within the doors is found appeasing rest;
In fields the gifts of nature are expressed.
The sea brings gain, the rich abroad provide
To blaze their names, the poor their wants to hide:
All household's best are governed by a wife;
His cares are light, who leads a single life:
Sweet children are delights which marriage bless;
He that hath none disturbs his thoughts the less.
Strong youth can triumph in victorious deeds;
Old age the soul with pious motions feeds.
All states are good, and they are falsely led
Who wish to be unborn or quickly dead.
Sir John Beaumont.
Thy ancient wealth, thy castled brow,
Thy solemn fanes, thy halls of state,
Thy high-born dames, thy crowded gate?
There's not a ruin left to tell
Where Corinth stood, how Corinth fell.
The Nereids of thy double sea
Alone remain to wail for thee.
Goldwin Smith.
Cast 'mid the dead,
Xerxes around the mighty limbs did fling
His mantle red.
Then from the shades the glorious hero cried:
"Not mine a traitor's guerdon. 'Tis my pride
This shield upon my grave to wear.
Forbear
Your Persian gifts; a Spartan I will go
To Death below."
Which first to Acheron should take her way;
Thrice with their sportive hands they threw, and thrice
To the same hand returned the fateful dice;
The maiden laughed when thus her doom was told:
Alas! that moment from the roof she rolled!
So sure is Fate whene'er it bringeth bale,
While prayers and vows for bliss must ever fail.
J. A. Symonds. M.D.
Of loftiest shade for those who shun the heat,
With foliage full, more close than tiling, where
Dove and cicada dwell aloft in air,
Me, too, that thus my head beneath you lay,
Protect, a fugitive from noon's fierce ray.
Goldwin Smith.
To form for lovers an obscure retreat,
Whilst with thy foliage closely intertwine
The curling tendrils of the clustered vine,
Still mayst thou flourish, in perennial green,
To shade the votaries of the Paphian queen.
W. Shepherd.
Whose rustling leaves sing to the zephyr's call;
My pipe shall join the streamlet's melody,
And slumber on your charmèd eyelids fall.
J. A. Symonds, M.D.
Let the time-honored fir feel the weight of your stroke,
The many-stalked thorn, or acanthus worn bare,
Pine, arbutus, ilex—but touch not the oak!
Far hence be your axe, for our grandams have sung
How the oaks are the mothers from whom we all sprung.
Merivale.
In my lone haunt, why tear me thus away?
Me, the Nymphs' wayside minstrel, whose sweet note
O'er sultry hill is heard and shady grove to float?
Lo! where the blackbird, thrush, and greedy host
Of starlings fatten at the farmer's cost!
With just revenge those ravages pursue;
But grudge not my poor leaf and sip of grassy dew.
Wrangham.
Spartis: the tale for others I repeat;
Deftly upon my lyre I played and sang,
When 'mid the song a broken harp-string rang,
And seeking for its sound, I could not hear
The note responsive to my descant clear.
Then on my lyre, unasked, unsought, there flew
A grasshopper, who filled the cadence due;
For while six chords beneath my fingers cried,
He with his tuneful voice the seventh supplied:
The midday songster of the mountains set
His pastoral ditty to my canzonet;
And when he sang, his modulated throat
Accorded with the lifeless strings I smote.
Therefore I thank my fellow-minstrel: he
Sits on a lyre in brass, as you may see.
Lysippus. You? Time, that all things can tame.
Why thus a-tiptoe? I have halted never.
Why ankle-winged? I fly like wind forever.
But in your hand that razor? 'Tis a pledge
That I am keener than the keenest edge.
Why falls your hair in front? For him to bind
Who meets me. True: but then you're bald behind?
Yes, because when with winged feet I have passed
'Tis vain upon my back your hands to cast.
Why did the sculptor carve you? For your sake
Here in the porch I stand; my lesson take.
A Median sculptor with sharp chisel hewed,
And brought me o'er the sea, that he might place
A trophied statue of the Greeks' disgrace.
But when the routed Persians heard the roar
Of Marathon, and ships swam deep in gore,
Then Athens, nurse of heroes, sculptured me
The queen that treads on arrogance to be:
I hold the scales of hope: my name is this—
Nike for Greece, for Asia Nemesis.
To Cnidos she'd repair,
Gliding across the watery way
To view her image there.
But when, arrived, she cast around
Her eyes divinely bright,
And saw upon that holy ground
The gazing world's delight,
Amazed, she cried—while blushes told
The thoughts that swelled her breast—
Where did Praxiteles behold
My form? or has he guessed?
J. H. Merivale.
Weep, wear your soul out with the flood of tears,
Heart-robber, thief of reason, foe to pride,
Winged fire, thou wound unseen the soul that sears!
Freedom from grief to us these bonds of thine,
Wherein thou wailest to the deaf winds, bring:
Behold! the torch wherewith thou mad'st us pine,
Beneath thy frequent tears is languishing!